DP!-Jack Vance short story

DP!-Jack Vance short story

DP! is a 20/22 page short story that sometimes does not have an exclamation point after the title.  It was first released in April, 1953 in the Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader.  Vance wrote this story while vacationing in a village in the Austrian Tyrol and uses this location as the setting for the story. White humanoid troglodytes begin coming up out of the fissures in the earth after a lava flow forces them to the surface. The "Trogs" are initially killed by fearful humans until they are recognized as also being human.  The harmless and helpless Trogs are blind and have no food or shelter. Prolonged exposure to the sun kills them. They are refugees, totally dependent on others.  Eventually millions of Trogs climb up out of the earth and are stranded in a small area in Austria called Trog City. The United Nations becomes involved and some countries offer to take some of the Trogs as immigrants. Some citizens find this threatening and campaign against it. One country wonders if the Trogs could be used for cheap or free labor. It is a classic refugee ethical dilemma done Vancian style.  I’ve read it several times rated it a 4 “Really liked it.”

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled The Dark Side of the Moon (1986)

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled Hard-Luck Diggings: The Early Works of Jack Vance, volume 1 (2010)

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled World-Thinker and Other Stories (2017)

 

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